Staff Member

I am thinking of shifting my 17'' 1.67 powerbook while I can still get some money back.

I want to know, how much faster is the latest 2.3ghz macbook compared to my current 1.67ghz powerbook? Is the speed going to be that noticeable?

Is it worth selling my PB at this stage?

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I think you'll notice a very definite increase in performance.
The MB has 2 cores, each running 50% faster than the single G4 in the PB (although not directly comparable due to the different processor architectures). On top of that, the C2D chip is 64 bit and has a front side bus speed of 800Mhz vs the 167Mhz of the powerbook. Finally, you have a SATA rather than a PATA disk in the MB.
TUAW ran some tests comparing a 2Ghz MB Pro against a 1.5Ghz Powerbook and that came out over 4 times faster. The MB and MB Pro are very similar apart from the dedicated graphics in the MB Pro so you should expect to see similar massive performance increases.

i think you will find very a very excessive speed increase. somewhat in between the 4-7x faster area in some cases.

take for example converting videos in handbrake, my dad's g4 ibook (1.25ghz g4) converted at around 30fps. my core duo (cpu has now been outdated twice) converts at around 100fps on the same video file.

now if you think that you would be getting a penryn processor, which is somewhat better than the C2D, which is better than my CD, which is much faster than the G4's, there is bound to be a quite impressive speed increase.

I think you'll notice a very definite increase in performance.
The MB has 2 cores, each running 50% faster than the single G4 in the PB (although not directly comparable due to the different processor architectures). On top of that, the C2D chip is 64 bit and has a front side bus speed of 800Mhz vs the 167Mhz of the powerbook. Finally, you have a SATA rather than a PATA disk in the MB.
TUAW ran some tests comparing a 2Ghz MB Pro against a 1.5Ghz Powerbook and that came out over 4 times faster. The MB and MB Pro are very similar apart from the dedicated graphics in the MB Pro so you should expect to see similar massive performance increases.

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Sounds convincing enough, Phil. Thanks for that. It is a question of whether opting for a 13'' screen will be bearable, as I'm very much used to a 17''.

I thought about a MBP, but the price difference over MB, being 2'' bigger with a better graphics card doesn't cut it for me - too much for not a lot.The new iMac looks brilliant, but the thought of a permanent machine is restrictive.

I can probably get £500 max for my powerbook, only a £400 less than a brand new Macbook.

While the MacBook will be waaayyyyyy faster. as someone with a Mac Pro 2.8 Octo at home, I find the 1.0 G4 iMac that I am writing this on to be plenty fast for everyday tasks such as email, browsing-based activities, word processing and the like. In fact, for mundane tasks, speed isn't even an issue on this machine and I notice no difference between this machine and my Mac Pro. It's a joy to use.

It all comes down to what you are really going to be using the machine for.

While the MacBook will be waaayyyyyy faster. as someone with a Mac Pro 2.8 Octo at home, I find the 1.0 G4 iMac that I am writing this on to be plenty fast for everyday tasks such as email, browsing-based activities, word processing and the like. In fact, for mundane tasks, speed isn't even an issue on this machine. It's a joy to use.

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i even find that is the case for my g3 imac. it compares to my gf's 2.3ghz P4, i dont know how that works but it just seems that it works efficently just for web-browsing, emails and word processing.

I would say keep the PB, the pro line of Apple laptops have a certain Je ne sais quo that the macbooks don't have. Keep saving until you can get a MBP, or get a refurb MBP, theres some on the Apple store for £949 usually.

The MacBook will absolutely smash the PowerBook in most things. It's going to be in the region of 6x faster in Handbrake rips, much faster in importing photos and music, it will actually run iMovie 7...

While the MacBook will be waaayyyyyy faster. as someone with a Mac Pro 2.8 Octo at home, I find the 1.0 G4 iMac that I am writing this on to be plenty fast for everyday tasks such as email, browsing-based activities, word processing and the like. In fact, for mundane tasks, speed isn't even an issue on this machine and I notice no difference between this machine and my Mac Pro. It's a joy to use.

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I've been splitting time between a first gen macbook and a PB G4 1.67. The PB just feels slow. I believe the Intel Macbooks were the first Apple laptops to run OS X's UI responsively. The UI on the 1.67 just lags. So yeah, for everyday tasks, the Macbook is nicer. But if you've been using the PB for awhile, then it might be fine since you don't know what you're missing. I won't even get into my Mac Pro, which is buttery smooth.

I just upgraded from a 1.67 PB to a 2.4 MB and I can tell you the difference is HUGE. I've only had my MB in service about a week but everything is much snappier. Even running Quark in Rosetta seems every bit as fast if not faster than my 1.67. Web browsing is an amazing difference, pages load almost instantly if not instantly. My fans don't come on all the time. I'm not getting beachballs. Video loads quickly and plays extremely well, no hiccups or pauses. Using my computer is totally enjoyable again.

You may want to think about a MBP, though, if you really like the 17" footprint you're currently in. I had a 17" PB 1.5ghz three years ago and went to the 1.67 15" two years ago b/c the 17 was too unwieldy for mobile use. After about a year with the 15", I found myself wishing for my 14" Pismo again. Now I'm finding (thus far) that the 13" BlackBook suits me just fine as my main machine. It's very Pismo-esque -- sturdy, gets the job done, small footprint. YMMV.

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